Sermon Text: Hebrews 3:1–6
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
The Son & The Servant
Please turn with me to Hebrews, chapter three, and as you turn there, please also remember the ultimate message of the book of Hebrews: The massive, total, absurd, audacious glory of Jesus.
Remember that before the book of Hebrews is about telling us how to do anything, it is about helping us to see properly—to see Jesus properly. In this book, we are learning how to look.
Why? Maybe you have wondered that. Why has there been so little Christians-are-to-behave-like-this talk in Hebrews so far? That kind of talk is very important, and the New Testament absolutely is crammed full of it—don’t let the antinomians and the cheap gracists and the stop-telling-me-what-to-do-you-legalists tell you otherwise.
The reason there has been so little of that kind of talk so far is not that our Lord does not want us conformed to his image. It’s not because “doing theology,” as in, learning theological facts, is superior to loving God and your neighbor. In fact, if you read the prophets, better to be a theological simpleton who loves widows and orphans than the PhD theologian with a withered heart.
No, the reason the New Testament spends so much time in sheer, massive, glorious description of Christ is because that Jesus is so massively glorious and so massively good, that for his people merely to see him properly is for them to become like him.
That’s the thesis that I’d like to introduce to this sermon, and it is the thesis that Christ-beholding is saint-transforming—that when we see Jesus properly, we will be transformed into his image through that sight.
Before our job is ever to do anything, it is to see Jesus rightly. Before it is our job to do, it is our job to see.
And I’m telling you this, because Hebrews chapter three begins with and invitation that is potent. It is an invitation that is likely to get lost for us in the midst of the brightness of all of the glories that the rest of this section unfolds.
That invitation, from verse one, is a mere two words: Consider Jesus.
Our job this morning is to see Jesus; it is to consider Jesus. It is to look upon Jesus and attempt to extract from our sight of him every gleam of glory and understanding and then worship that we can.
Why? Because Christ-beholding is saint-transforming. In the New Testament Scriptures, so potent is the proper seeing of Jesus that it is connected to everything from our justification to our sanctification to our glorification—in other words, it is connected to our salvation, beginning to end.
Your initial salvation, that is, your justification, is described in 2 Corinthians 4:6 as God looking into the darkness of your dead heart, and saying to that dark, dead, heart, “Let light shine out of darkness,” light which Paul says, “…has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” What is that? It’s like a little creation ex nihilo, like when that same Lord looked into the darkness of non-being in the beginning and commanded, “Let there be light!”
Earlier in the same passage, 2 Corinthians 3:18, he tells us that “…we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,” that is, that seeing and worshiping Jesus will make us like him—by itself.
So here’s the point: That you and I, as we gather here week after week and look to Jesus in singing, in hymns and Psalms and spiritual songs; as we open the Bible and see his face and his work in every particle of the book; as we come to the Lord’s Table, confessing our sins and feasting on his grace—that all of that, before I tell you how to do anything, before even the Word instructs us practically (which again, it does)—before we do any of that, as we behold Jesus, God is actively transforming us through our mere sight of him into his image.
To see him is to be transformed into his image. Which is why salvation is often described as scales coming off of eyes, of sight being restored to the blind, of light coming into darkness, of a veil being removed from faces that were priorly veiled—because we can’t even begin to come to God and look like his Son until we are given sight of him by grace, and only through the Gospel can we see him properly.
And finally, 1 John 3:2 teaches us that this sight will not just conform us to the image of Christ in part, but rather will be the means through which we are fully and finally conformed to his image in our glorification: “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
As we gather, and as we lift our eyes together to the throne of the glory of the Majesty on high and see the risen and reigning Son of God, we are transformed. So Hebrews chapter 3, verse 1; this is the Word of the Lord:
“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
-Hebrews 3:1–6
And so we will accept the invitation to consider this Jesus. There are five specific facets of his glory that the text specifically calls us to consider.
Apostle & High Priest
Number one, consider his ministry as cosmic reconciler:
“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession…”
So the text is speaking to Christians, because it is directed to “holy brothers” who “share in a heavenly calling.” The calling is heavenly because it has its origins in heaven and because it is bringing us to heaven—Jesus came from heaven to bring us back to heaven with him.
And we who are on this journey to God are to consider Jesus as the apostle and high priest of our confession. What is an apostle? One who is sent in the authority of and with the commissioning of the sender. Jesus was sent out by the Father. He was an Apostle before the Apostles were Apostles. In John 20:21, he made this plain when he said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
What is a High Priest? One who represents the people before God, their head, their stand-in. The priest was taken from the people and went before God to represent them. We’ll unpack much more about what kind of High Priest Jesus is—one after the order of Melchizedek—later in Hebrews.
But for now, bringing these two offices together—that of Apostle and that of High Priest—as one who fills both offices, Jesus is sent by God with God’s authoritative commission, and then he is taken from men to represent men to God as a perfect Man. He is therefore the cosmic reconciler of God to men.
And that, incidentally, is our confession. He is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, and our confession is that he is our Apostle and High Priest, the one who was sent by the Father to reconcile all things, whether in heaven or on earth, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Our confession is that we needed an Apostle—we were never going to go to God. We were never going to seek him. We needed him to be sent to us. And our confession is that we needed a High Priest—one who would bear our sin before God and make atonement for it.
So as you consider Jesus, Refuge, consider this: Jesus is a relentless and cosmic reconciler. The Father sent him to come and get you—and everything else. He is seated in the heavens right now, and seated there as a High Priest.
Think about that: He was sent with the authority of the Father to reconcile you to the Father, and then commissioned as an immortal High Priest—one who can never die!—so that you would have an immortal hope before the throne.
Faithful Like Moses
Number two, we are invited to consider his faithfulness:
“…who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house.”
The Father commissioned Jesus to be our Apostle and High Priest, and Jesus did not shrink or shirk or fail. He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in God’s house.
Moses is a giant of an Old Testament figure, a giant among the Jews to whom this letter was first addressed. He is the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
So consider Moses for a moment so we can better consider Jesus by comparison. To a Jew, Moses would be to a Jew like George Washington, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Captain America all rolled into one would be to an American. It is difficult to overstate Moses’s stature among the Jews.
Moses was the one specially preserved by God from the genocide of the Hebrew babies. His name means “drawn out,” a reference to the fact that not only was he drawn out of then Nile river in his ark of reeds and raised as Egyptian royalty, but that he was then drawn out of that life of comfort and ease and power by God to live and suffer with God’s people—just like Jesus.
Moses, who stood before Pharaoh and demanded the freedom of God’s people. Moses, who led them in their Exodus through the parted Red Sea. Moses, who strode up the face of fiery Mount Sinai to receive the Law from the hand of God. Moses, who struck the rock and out gushed rivers of water.
Moses, who made the brazen serpent in the wilderness so that people could look on it and not die when they had been bitten by the serpents sent from God to judge their wickedness. Moses, who led the people to the edge of the Promised Land and then died looking over its border from the mountain. Moses, whose body became a battle ground between Michael and the devil.
Moses, whom the LORD spoke to face to face, as a friend, the man called the most humble man, the meekest man, to live on the face of the earth. Moses, who faithfully led the people of God though the wilderness even as they grumbled and whispered and plotted against him.
Moses is a Jewish giant—and Jesus, the author of Hebrews would have us know, was faithful like that. He was, in humility and meekness, but also in power and sternness and strength, faithful.
What that means is that you and I can trust him to finish and accomplish his commission. It means that he isn’t like us, who start things we don’t finish. It’s like, how many projects have you and I left in our wake, half-finished and abandoned?
Moses, in fact, did not finish; he was not able. He could not bring the people over the Jordan; he could only die looking into it. Jesus isn’t like that. He is a faithful finisher. Jesus brings us all the way to the Promise!
Better Than Moses
So Jesus is faithful like Moses. But number three, we are invited to consider not just Jesus’ similarity to Moses, but also his supremacy over Moses:
“For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son.”
Remember, this book is written to Jewish Christians who are tempted to shrink back to Jerusalem and the glories of Jerusalem, and the author would have them see, not that those glories are not glorious—not that the Temple and Moses and angels and the Law and the Old Covenant wasn’t glorious—but that Jesus’ glory infinitely surpasses those glories.
Moses was glorious. But standing next to Jesus, he looks like a gnat. Hold a candle out at arms length and look at the noonday sun next to that little flame—that’s Moses’ glory next to Christ. Jesus’ glory eclipses Moses’ glory.
Moses was a servant in the house where Jesus is the firstborn Son. Moses is a servant in a house that Jesus built. Moses is one of God’s people; Jesus is the builder of God’s people.
Now listen: This isn’t to put Jesus and Moses on different teams; it’s to put Moses in the right place and Jesus in the right place on the team. You and I should love Moses; we ought to love him and the Scriptures he wrote. But he is on a different place in the team than Jesus.
Jesus is the Captain, Owner, and General Manager of the team. Moses is a player. Moses lives in the house, but Jesus’ body is the house.
We Are What He is Building
Which brings us to number four, consider what it is that Jesus is building:
“And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
Jesus is the house-builder; Moses was a house-steward. Jesus is the Son in the house where Moses was a servant. And here’s what we discover in the last half of verse 6: that we are what he is building.
Jesus has already brought together heaven and earth in this text as the cosmic reconciler, now see that he brings together the Old and New Testament saints—Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and all the rest were Christians, and we, sons of Abraham by faith, are Jews in the truest sense of the word.
There aren’t Old Testament saints, saved in one way and belonging to one people, and then New Testament saints, saved another way and belonging to another people. No, we are the household of God, and Jesus was faithful to his calling in that household, just as Moses was faithful in that household—see how it is all the same house?
Moses and us. Same house. This is just what 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 teaches us, that we are “… God’s Temple and that God’s Spirit dwells” in us. It is just what 1 Peter 2:4–5 teaches us, that we ourselves “…like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is building a house, and you are that house. The people of God are the house. Now listen to what that means, because this is huge: That means that God saved you to dwell in you.
Jesus’ house-building ministry is the fulfillment of the hope and the promise of the Old Testament, that we would be God’s people, and he would be our God. That he would dwell with us, just as he dwelt in the Tabernacle at the center of Israel’s camp. Except now, we are the Tabernacle. The separation, the space, the distance—all of it has been closed. He is now as close to us as the blood in our veins.
An If/Then Warning
Finally, friends, we would be fools to leave without considering his warning. It’s right there in the grammar of verse 6,
“And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
If you’ve ever taken a philosophy class, especially a symbolic logic or deductive logic class, then you will recognize the kind of statement that the author of Hebrews makes here in verse 6. It is an if/then statement, what logicians call a “conditional” statement.
It’s like the statement, “If you do your chores, then you will get your allowance.” Hebrews 3:6 could be restated, “If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope, then we are his house.”
The warning is clear: You are his house if you hold fast. You are not his house if you do not. In other words, here we have a call to persevere.
Before I unpack this a little bit more and we try to understand what it is and is not teaching, it’s important that we see that this statement is not an aberration from the rest of how the Bible speaks of our salvation and the assurance of our salvation. Let me read a selection of verses that tell us the same:
“Now I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.”
-1 Corinthians 15:1–2
“You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.”
-Mark 13:13
“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine.”
-John 8:31
“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
-Colossians 1:21–23
What’s going on? Can you lose your salvation? Let’s bring it back to Hebrews and see if we can understand what’s going on. Several times in the book, Hebrews teaches us that there are basically three categories of people with respect to this house of salvation that Christ is building:
Those who visit the house, but by their leaving show that they are not of it—they are visitors, not sons.
Those who never in the house. They are not at all identified withe the house. They are unbelievers.
Those who are true and free sons of God, who dwell in the house forever—who actually are the house.
So this is a real warning for people who really have walked into the house and even say “I am of this house and in this house. I believe the gospel” but who by their failure to persevere prove that they were never indeed of the house.
This is the person whom Jesus described in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 as the rocky soil (who seems to follow Christ, but runs at the first sight of hardship or persecution on account of Christ), or the thorny soil (who seems to follow Christ, but abandons him in favor of the cares and things of this world).
1 John 2:19 supports this, saying, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” In other words, falling away reveals that a person never truly knew Christ.
Maybe you say, “Hang on, stop, you’re making me scared. You’re making me tremble. You’re shaking me. You’re shaking my confidence.” GOOD!
As Paul urges us with great urgency, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Trembling is our job. Trembling is a gift. Christian, don’t neglect to tremble! But listen to the rest of his sentence, because I know you’re thinking what I’m thinking and what all of us who read these kinds of verses seriously think: “…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
Here’s the question: If the saints must persevere in the faith to the end to be saved, then isn’t it possible to become unsaved? To lose your salvation? Can a truly saved, regenerated, justified, glory-bound Christian become unregenerate, hostile in mind, evil, lost, and reprobate?
That’s the question. My answer is emphatically, “No! Never!” Why do I believe this?
“…those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom he predestined, he also called; and these whom he called, he also justified; and these whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
-Romans 8:29–31
“But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
-John 10:26–30
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
-1 Peter 1:3–5
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you, and he also will bring it to pass.”
-1 Thessalonians 5:23–24
“For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
-Philippians 1:6
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who send me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”
-John 6:37–39
So here’s what I believe the Bible teaches us, that the grace that saves is also the grace that accomplishes what God requires, that persevering grace is embedded in the seed of saving grace.
This shouldn’t be surprising to us! To say that God accomplishes in his saints what he requires in his saints is the same thing we say about initial salvation. God requires holiness, and man has none. So what God did is he accomplished it for them. Similarly, God requires perseverance in his saints. So he accomplishes it for them by grace.
The perseverance of the saints turns out to be God’s preservation of the saints. And listen: One of the means he is using to preserve you in that faith in this glorious Christ we have considered is trembling self-examination done in obedience to his words, words like we find here in Hebrews 3.